Ethno-nationalism may well be the basic cause
of Putin’s war against Ukraine.
It’s what drove Haman quite insane,
inducing him to violate the dat, denoting laws
of decency, such as the right of every nation
to follow its traditions and to speak
its language, radically against the chic
of ethno-nationalism, an abysmal aberration.
Putin hopefully will be defeated by a Jew
who leads his nation. Maybe one-two-seven
nations will, with hidden help from heaven,
depose him, as Jews deposed Haman in a Purim coup,
aided by two Jewish people, Mordecai and Esther,
whose names were hardly Jewish but behave
as bravely as a Jew who may yet save
a nation that’s not his, as cursèd Putin’s blessed detester.
The Talmud states in bMegillah 7b:
Rava said: A person is obligated to become intoxicated with wine on Purim until he is so intoxicated that he does not know how to distinguish between cursed is Haman and blessed is Mordecai.
Inspired by “Putin’s War on Ukraine Is About Ethnicity and Empire,” NYT, 3/16/22, by Steven Erlanger:
President Biden took office with the idea that this century’s struggle would be between the world’s democracies and autocracies.
But in waging war on Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has been driven by a different concept, ethno-nationalism. It is an idea of nationhood and identity based on language, culture and blood — a collectivist ideology with deep roots in Russian history and thought.
Mr. Putin has repeatedly asserted that Ukraine is not a real state and that the Ukrainians are not a real people, but actually Russian, part of a Slavic heartland that also includes Belarus.
“Putin wants to consolidate the civilizational border of Russia, as he calls it, and he is doing that by invading a sovereign European country,” said Ivan Vejvoda, a senior fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna.
In this sense, argues Ivan Krastev, the war is one of recolonization, capturing lands ruled by the Russian empire and the Soviet Union. “Even if Ukraine were autocratic, it would not be tolerated by Putin,” he said. “He’s reconsolidating imperial nationalism.’’
Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.
